Use Hotkey Shortcuts To Open Programs

You can use hotkey shortcuts to open programs quickly in Windows. A hotkey shortcut is a combination of keys that launch a program, and it is easy to assign these to your most frequently opened programs. No longer will you need to sift through layer upon layer of menus to find the program you want to run. Nor will you need to endure a Desktop cluttered with program shortcuts. To make a good tip even better, you can even use this technique to launch your favorite websites.

Launch Programs With Hotkey Shortcuts

To launch a program using a hotkey shortcut, you first need to navigate to that program using the Start menu. Once you find the program in the menu, right-click it, then select Properties.

We have chosen to add a hotkey for Photoshop in the example above, and have decided to use the CTRL + Alt + P to launch it. To do this, we clicked in the Shortcut Key field and pressed the keys we wanted to use to launch Photoshop. We then clicked OK to save the hotkey. Now when we press those three keys together, the program launches automatically, without the need to click on anything. You can use this for any application, such as Word, Excel, or whatever you use a lot.

Launch Websites With Hotkey Shortcuts

If you’d like to launch a website using a hotkey shortcut, simply right-click an open area on a website and select Create Shortcut. You can temporarily place the shortcut on your Desktop. Next, right-click the shortcut on the Desktop and select Properties.

We have decided to launch pctechbytes.com using a series of shortcut keys, and have added those keys in the Shortcut Key field above. Now when we press those keys, our website is automatically launched without having to open our browser or having to navigate through our bookmarks menu.You can then proceed to delete the shortcut icon that was placed on your Desktop during this process.

If you use a lot of hotkey shortcuts, you may want to come up with a logical naming system so you do not get confused and open the wrong program using hotkeys, which would defeat the purpose of this time-saving tip.